INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Collaborative effort
IBS Software’s Kanu Aravindakshan argues that greater collaboration between airports and airlines will be key in the post COVID aviation landscape.
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n paper, the relationship between airports and airlines has always been symbiotic in nature. Neither can operate without the other and they both share a clear set of common goals, namely transporting passengers and cargo around the globe as efficiently as possible. In reality, most airports and airlines tend to be driven by their own individual metrics, interests and objectives, meaning they don’t work together as effectively as they could or should do. While the case for better collaboration has always been there, particularly in key areas such as improving services and achieving better cost savings, continued growth within the sector during pre-COVID times meant it wasn’t viewed as something critical to success. However, times have changed, and in the post-COVID landscape, it has now become absolutely essential. With the sector now fighting to recover from a bruising 18 months, rapid digitalisation has taken hold. Both airlines and airports are expected to allocate up to 6% of their revenue on IT spend between 2021 and 2024, for transformation projects and infrastructure upgrades that will improve their operational efficiency and better equip them for the future. As such, there’s never been a better time for airports to take their collaboration with airlines to the next level, making joint investments that will not only see them safely through the pandemic, but set them up to thrive during better times, which we all hope are just over the horizon.
The aviation sector remains in the eye of the storm Simply put, the aviation sector needs to entice travellers back as soon as possible. Prior to the pandemic, one of the biggest challenges airports faced was crowd control, and how to manage huge passenger/ cargo flows during peak times of the day, week or month.
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Now, they have the exact opposite problem. While cargo volumes have proved relatively resilient throughout the pandemic, the brutal combination of national lockdowns, strict travel restrictions and consumer uncertainty has seen passenger air travel fall off a cliff. Official figures from the Civil Aviation Authority suggest that in the UK alone, passenger numbers fell by 223 million last year, an annual decline of 75% on 2019. Heathrow, the UK’s largest airport, recorded a 72.7% decline from 80.9 million passengers in 2019 to 22.1 million in 2020. Despite this unprecedented drop in passengers – and therefore revenues – both airlines and airports still have significant costs to cover. Airports must continue to fund ongoing maintenance, security and staffing requirements for remaining passenger and cargo operations, as do airlines. To do this, they must find new ways to increase their revenues and cut their overheads, while waiting for traveller confidence and numbers to slowly return to pre-pandemic levels, which could take years. With both parties vying to entice the same set of passengers back, working together is undoubtedly the best way to move forward.
Barriers to co-operation must be overcome on both sides In most cases, there are two main barriers to better collaboration between airports and airlines – structures and systems. Of the two, systems are by far the easiest to change. Structure relates to the way airports operate their flight schedule and processes. Ultimately, airlines are all customers of the airports and issues relating to arrival and departure schedules are common. For example, if a new airport opens in the UK, it is likely that British-based airlines will want preference when it comes to the best time slots. However, the airport needs to tread carefully because other airlines will also want access to these slots, so a fine balance must be struck that’s hard to deviate too far from.
